


Just Close Your Eyes

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Ashes to Ashes [7]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Stargate Atlantis Fusion, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Character Death Fix, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gentleness, Hurt/Comfort, I swear there's a lot of sweet supportive stuff and comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Nanites, Nanites (Stargate), Parent-Child Relationship, Past Rape/Non-con, Plans For The Future, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: Treize had spoken to live audiences of thousands, televised to millions, and he'd never lost track of his words, his eloquence. But one on one, it always seemed to go that way.No, don't leave, I want you to staysomehow becameI don't want to hinder you and I understand,solicitousness that bordered on coldness, that didn't show up anywhere else except when it was completely inconvenient.He even managed to struggle limp to the sink to wash his hands, leaning a thigh hard against the counter to keep upright while he ran words through his head. Fuck and damn. "Please come with me. I can't imagine not having you in my life."
Relationships: Chang Wufei/Treize Khushrenada
Series: Ashes to Ashes [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711870
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Just Close Your Eyes

By the time they landed, Treize had a hand pressed over his eyes as if that could actually hide the dampness of his eyes from the pain or any of the facial expressions he knew he was making. Hitting atmosphere leaving and landing was jarring, rattling, more painful than any bad landing he'd made in decades, which was refreshing in some way.

At least they had left the Barton family fiasco behind for a second time in his life.

Mariemaia had glanced over her shoulder constantly during the flight, obviously worried, and Wufei had seated himself at his feet, back braced against the seat behind him as he tried to work the knots out of the muscles in his left leg. He had been doing fairly well in the rehab work they'd been doing, all low-key and meant to build up stamina, not push him into the sort of action they'd seen. Pilot 03 had coolly handled all of it, including Mariemaia's obvious distress, and he was grateful for that.

He had kept her distracted explaining how to fly the ship; it made Treize wonder where he'd learned to pilot it. He'd always wondered about the pilots, about the techniques of the groups behind Operation Meteor, but it wasn't a time to focus on it because he was struggling to deal with the pain. 

It was a relief when the ship stopped, engines revving down as he struggled to stay still. Now was the fun part -- explanations and hopefully no overblown reactions. "T-thank you, Wufei."

"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when we both walk away from all of this, lives intact," Wufei muttered low enough that Mariemaia couldn't hear it. It was obvious that he was tense, and it was for more reasons than just the landing. "I had a plan, and... well, it went about as expected, but all the same."

"Father?" Her voice was soft and frightened, and he didn't entirely know what to do with that. With any of it. "Where are we going?"

"Haven't the faintest," he said, in as bright a tone as he could manage. He wiped his eyes one more time, swallowed, and tried to sit more upright. "But these are Wufei and Triton's friends, so it has to be an improvement."

If the sound of Wufei's laugh had an edge of hysteria to it, so what?

"We knew what we were getting into after another week of trying to delve into everything once Wufei had arrived. Sally and Noin were going to be making arrangements in preparation for every event, including the one we're in now." How they could have known to make arrangements for any of it was beyond Treize.

"See, they're very prepared people." If they thought anything that was going on now was possible, oh -- Sally and Noin. "Lucrezia Noin?" That was possibly the best news he could expect, that they would be coming into contact with a known entity.

"Yes," Trowa replied. "I think she's here, expecting us. We landed at Victoria Base."

Well-known to all of them, it seemed, and he saw the vaguely guilty look that crossed Wufei's face. He wondered if it still bothered him as terribly as it might once have. 

"Have the ESUN forces redecorated since it was the OZ training base?" He fumbled with the seatbelt, hands unsteady. His hips and legs were killing him, he was exhausted, and it felt like he was falling apart. It reminded him how limited everything had been in the last two weeks, though it had simultaneously been amazing.

Wufei's hands were warm on his when they tugged them away and he undid the seatbelt. "They've rebuilt some things. Most of it started before war's end." He stood, and his spine cracked. "Do you think you can walk? If you can't, we'll manage."

"I." He had been base commander there once. He'd spent, on and off, a couple of decades of his life there in varying positions of power, and he was damned if he was going to be helped along. "I'm going to try."

Ah, he knew that look. That was the look that said he was making poor choices and Wufei disapproved, and honestly, he was in his forties, he did not need his younger... Boyfriend? Lover? Making that face at him. He was not a stubborn child.

It was oddly important, particularly if this all ended with him in custody. He managed to stand unsteadily, half inspecting himself, and found there was blood spotting through his shirt up by his left shoulder. "Hmn. I'm going to need an IV, and minerals. Creative little bastards are repurposing again."

That huff of breath wasn't exasperated; it was worried, and Wufei bit his bottom lip, peering at it. "I don't... what the hell is it that they're doing? Never mind. Let's get you somewhere to lie down or, better yet, a doctor instead of whatever the hell was going on with Dekim."

"Grandfather had a doctor for Father sometimes," Mariemaia offered as Trowa moved to open the door.

"They were built to disassemble, Wufei. They're very good at repurposing raw materials." He took a step, and the pain was less than it had been while sitting. He could manage slowly.

"Mine don't do that." And he was scowling, looking at him, but he was able to support himself and walk, Treize was fairly certain. His legs were definitely working better than they had when they had loaded him into the shuttle. "I'm going to have to work on those. I don't even have the right tools for it now, but I'll get them."

"Yours weren't originally built for genocide," he said quietly, brushing fingers over Wufei's arm fondly. "I'll show you what I do with them later. Once we're not in a potential custodial situation." And then he gave a glance to Mariemaia. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes, Father." They were going to have to figure out what to do about that, too. He didn't think he was the sort of parent any child needed.

Reaching under the seat, Wufei grabbed her bag as well as the one he'd brought with him, and watched as Treize took a step forward. That seemed to bring him some sort of relief, because he didn't automatically push himself in closer to be leaned on if necessary, and that was very much a good thing.

Trowa stood in the door and looked around for a moment before shrugging. "Noin's coming. Can you make it down the steps?"

"Yes." Even if the little bastards were cannibalizing from his arm so he could do it. He reached for Mariemaia's hand, because it was a miracle she wasn't scared out of her wits, and he started to walk carefully down the transport stairs.

"Sir." Noin didn't sound surprised, or if she did, it was well-hidden. "It's good to see you again. And I see you've brought a guest with you."

"Mariemaia Barton Khushrenada." No point in making it a guessing game, and he nudged her forward a little. "Mariemaia, this is Lucrezia Noin. Formerly one of my best captains, though I suppose you've a new rank now."

"Hello, ma'am." She sank into a little curtsy, head dipping. "It's lovely to meet you."

Noin looked just taken aback. "And to meet you as well, Miss Khushrenada. General, you appear to be bleeding."

Wufei stepped forward, scowling at her. Treize wondered if he didn't like her or if she just made him think about where they were that much harder. "We need to get him some fluids, preferably IV with a number of other things. Is there something nearby so that we can address it, or...?"

“Yes, yes, there's a full medical bay... If you'll all follow me. We'll need to debrief all of you, eventually." But she was relaxed and turned her back to them all -- so not a threat perceived -- and led the way quite casually. "Were you pursued?"

"Only briefly." Pilot 03 sounded unwavering. "Commander Po is en route?"

"Yes. Considering some of the things that we saw, we were fairly certain she would be needed," Noin offered, leading the way. "We've also made contact with President Catalonia, since we thought she would be the person best suited to dealing with our new reality of General Khushrenada having lived after all."

She? "President Catalonia? Cousin Dorothy is the president?" That just, well, she had been right hand to Relena, and it was funny how that kept happening. He wondered if she was dead or mad, after all. It was a wonder Zechs hadn't survived somehow and used his corpse to climb a ladder, it seemed to be the way of their world. 

He lightly squeezed Mariemaia's hand as they walked. "You'll find you have all sorts of new family to meet. Most of them are frightening, strong women."

"Terrifying," Wufei agreed. "And I must say, you have the good fortune of having gained your mother's eyebrows. Your cousin Dorothy's are terrifying. I think she grooms them that way on purpose, to keep lesser humans from daring to approach her."

Mariemaia seemed to have relaxed a bit, and that made her laugh. "You're making that up," she accused, still giggling.

"I'm not," Wufei promised. "Eyebrows. Terrifying." He seemed to contemplate it. "Cross my heart."

"He's completely telling the truth."

"The medical facilities are still up on the third deck," Noin said, looking over her shoulder at them as they approached the vast main building. "We've been meaning to build a new building, but..." 

But he could guess that any military or law enforcement arm was underfunded in the wake of the devastation they had all suffered, and it gave his mind something to chew on.

Wufei drew in closer to him, glancing up from the corner of his eyes. "Are you okay to make it to the third deck?" he asked. It was quiet, barely audible.

"Not at all," he smiled back, jaw tightening at the thought of it. He was already feeling overheated just walking from the transport to the building.

That seemed to be enough for him, so Wufei moved forward, taking longer strides to catch up with Noin and speaking with her, voice low, words quick. She glanced back, looking at Treize and then looking at Trowa.

Trowa just nodded, and made a vague one-handed gesture, from what Treize could see as he turned a little. "Why don't you stay here, and I'll radio up for a wheelchair. We still have a lift," Noin said.

"Does it still have a bucket in the corner?" Treize countered dryly.

Noin shrugged. "It has ever since the time everyone got stuck and Rogers peed in the corner. Wise choices," she offered. "There are steps here, you can sit until it's time to go up."

"I'm glad to see nothing has changed in my absence." He meant it, which was funny. An institution could change hands four times, and nothing about the institution changed. The nature of a base was the same at the root of it.

Mariemaia sat on the steps and held out her hand toward him. "Come sit, Father, you'll feel better."

"Or at least less like you're going to fall on your face, which is definitely something of which I wouldn't approve," Wufei snarked.

He chuckled at that and sat down, easing himself to sit beside Mariemaia after he took her hand. Treize was mostly sure that he wasn't going to be able to stand up again, but that was fine. His shoulder was starting to hurt as compensation, and he wondered if it had all happened before, if it would continue to cannibalize him. "They haven't even changed the runners on the stairs. That's miserable."

"Ah, well," Noin told him with a smile. "We don't spend a lot of time here. Once we went global, some of the older sites are mostly just here for when something becomes vitally necessary in that part of the world. For the most part, our facilities in Sanc and New Canada see the majority of the usage."

"They weren't very present in the United Kingdom," Wufei offered as an aside. 

It sounded like a suggestion to Treize, and he glanced at Wufei as he leaned back against the stairs, with their old worn carpet runners, a little relief flooding his body. Yes, he was done moving. "Interesting. Headquarters in Bremen?"

"Yes, actually. It keeps us out of the general chaos that one expects when you're in the places that see most of the usage." She leaned against the wall, fingers tapping at her chin. "I hate to ask this, Your Excellency..."

He never enjoyed any question that started that way, but Noin had always been an excellent soldier, particularly when it came to comms and engineering. "Yes?"

"How on earth did you survive?" Right to the point, then. A man had to appreciate that sort of conversation, he supposed.

Wufei's mouth was partially open as if to answer the question, or more likely to start cursing. Treize managed to cut in before he could do it.

"The same way I've survived everything else the world has thrown at me: luck, and good timing." It was an oblique answer, but true, and he didn't need to explain there what he would no doubt have to explain repeatedly in a debriefing session.

"Brought on by previous bad timing," Wufei muttered, arms crossed over his chest. 

Mariemaia was sitting one step up from him and started playing with his hair, petting him soothingly. "Grandfather brought Father to our home. He said that he'd been found by salvagers, floating in space. Presumably in his mobile suit." None of them bothered telling her that it had exploded, thank god.

"Quite right." He gestured with his good right hand to his daughter. His shoulder was continuing to twinge in pain, and he was rather afraid to move it. "I still haven't fully recovered. It's been slow." And he could only begin to guess why Wufei and Trowa had blood on them, and why the urgency, but it wasn't the time or place to ask. He was tired and Mariemaia was petting his hair like he was a favored pet. Someone needed to get her a dog. He would.

"They had him on pain medication. It was slowing the healing, I don't know why it works that way," Wufei stated reluctantly. "Stopping it helped, but what he really needs is vitamin and mineral infusions."

They all heard the heavy equipment elevator come to a stop at their floor with an ominous creaking and a heavy rattle before the doors opened. "That takes me back. Never thought I would find myself nostalgic for elevators."

Noin laughed. "I'll climb the stairs and meet you there. Sally is..." The sound of a plane came loud enough to hear. "Like I said. On her way. Right behind you. We'll be up in a bit, if you can go and get settled."

The elevator was still a gaping vacant hellscape that he'd been trapped in once with a very boring general from the kingdom of Saud. He sat up reluctantly and worked out how to get his body moving for him again.

"Wufei, I'll carry the bags," Pilot 03 offered quietly.

"Thanks." At least he didn't seem grumpy about people who weren't Noin. "If you don't mind, make sure that Sally ends up with the data storage bag? I don't need it back again." From the sound of it, he might be worried about what he would do if he did end up with it.

Trowa tilted his head in a short nod. "Sure."

"Father, I'll help you," Mariemaia offered, coming up beside him.

"That's very kind of you." He managed to get himself up standing by pushing with his good hand against the stairs, ignoring the starburst of pain behind his eyes. He was rather interested in what was in the data storage bag himself, but that was something else to ask about later.

Preferably when Wufei wasn't there to hear about it.

Before he'd made it two steps, Wufei was beside him, pulling his arm over his shoulder. "There was supposed to be a wheelchair," he muttered, but he was supporting most of Treize's weight so that they could move forward and get where they were going.

"I must look better than I feel," he agreed, clutching onto Wufei's shoulder like the lifeline it was. "It's been a long day, hasn't it? I'm not even sure what time it is." He was going to keep trying to make quiet casual conversation for Mariemaia's sake.

They managed to make it into the elevator, and Wufei quietly told Mariemaia which button to push. She enjoyed doing so, like any nine-year-old would do, Treize supposed. He wouldn't know; he was fairly certain that he had not been anything like a normal nine-year-old. "I'm not sure what time it is. Everything is topsy turvy," Wufei finally replied.

"I'm sorry." He inhaled and then exhaled slowly, kept his concentration focused on standing. The doors finished closing, and the whole thing engaged with a not soothing clank. "I owe you so much."

"Yes," Wufei agreed. "You do. You owe it to me to do what it takes to get better. We can negotiate what else you owe me after that." His mouth was curved slightly, though, as if he either didn't mean it at all or as if the idea pleased him. Either way. "If we end up stuck on this thing, you will absolutely owe me a fabulous dinner at the very least."

Mariemaia tilted her head and listened. "It sounds very much as if it gets stuck regularly." Living on colony had probably done away with anything like claustrophobia that she might have had.

He wondered what it was like never to see a 'real' sky or if the concept mattered at all when there was a false sky and a weather pattern and things that grew. "When I was the commander of this base, I was trapped in here with a very impatient Kingdom of Saud general. It took three hours. Once he saw the bucket in the corner, he would not stop going on about how we were savages." He was not wrong, but the bucket wasn't why he was right.

Treize had honestly enjoyed the way he had gazed with an appalled side eye at the bucket. He had not, he recalled, liked the man very much.

Mariemaia lifted a hand to her chin and rubbed just beneath the point of it, self-soothing perhaps. Her life had been interrupted, so perhaps they should expect that sort of thing. "Where is Grandfather, Wufei?"

Beside him, Wufei breathed out slowly as the elevator creaked to a stop. "Your Grandfather was planning an immediate attack on Earth, Mariemaia."

That was the blood, then. 

"The Gundam Pilots protect the people of the colonies and Earth. They maintain the peace." He looked at her, moved his wretched, useless left hand to take her fingers. "Even when it hurts them to do so."

It wasn't a surprise, the way the tears filled her eyes, or the fact that she looked away from Wufei. He did seem to find that painful. "I'm sorry, Mariemaia." He wasn't sorry for killing Dekim. He was sorry for hurting her, Treize thought. "But I needed to protect you and your father."

"And the Earth. Often we have to make decisions that are bigger than us and our immediate interests; they might run directly against our own interests, but they're still what needs to be done." The elevator doors clunked slowly open, and he squeezed her hand unsteadily.

Mariemaia sniffed and rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. "I loved him."

Of course she had. She was a child and he had raised her for most of her life. "It's all right to blame me," Wufei told her. "I'm strong enough to bear it."

Yes, Wufei was. They stepped off the elevator, but she seemed to lose all momentum once they were in the hallway. "I know. And he loved you."

"Yes." Yes, and there were the tears, more like what he'd expect from a child. Wufei looked up at him, lost, and Treize realized that it was entirely possible neither of them had ever dealt with a weeping child. He looked lost and Treize felt lost, and they still needed to get to the medical area.

"I'll come back to get her," Wufei muttered, because what else was there to do?

"No." He loosened his fingers from Wufei's grasp, pulled his arm back, and slowly knelt down to get on level with her. Treize was going to regret it, but there was time. He put his good arm behind her back, and pulled her in close, and then she really started to bawl, half hysterical, and all Treize could do was make soothing noises and kneel there.

By the time she seemed to calm down, breath hitching more slowly, Wufei had walked away from them and the elevator clanking behind them had begun to sound. Treize wasn't altogether surprised when he heard footsteps and Wufei arrived with a wheelchair. "Come on," he murmured. "Time to get you lying down. The bleeding doesn't appear to be any worse than before."

"All right." He pulled back, slowly, looking Mariemaia in the eyes and wiping at the edges of her cheek. "I think we could all use a nap. How does that sound?"

She nodded, sniffing hard. "I know Grandfather had bad ideas. He. He wanted me to be a, a figurehead. That's the right word, isn't it? But then you were there, Father, and... I didn't think you would like that. I don't know why."

"I want you to be free to pursue the things that interest you. I don't think the Earth needs a tyrant right now. We have peace, and... I'm assuming committee meetings, Wufei?" He wasn't sure how he was going to get off the floor, until Wufei pushed the wheelchair right up against his back, and he could twist, and that was better. He could use it as support to get up into it.

Strong hands helped to pull him into the wheelchair, getting him settled gently. "So many committee meetings. I haven't been party to them, thank god, since I chose to go back to school instead of going into peacekeeping, but as you've brought me out of retirement in order to find you and bring you to safety, I suspect they'll make me go to more of them than I'd like."

"See? Committee meetings mean peace." He was trying to get her to buck up, just a bit, and she gave an awkward laugh that was still bordering on tears, but Mariemaia nodded, and it seemed like they were moving again. His arm was starting to kill him.

By the time they made it to medical, it was taking all he could do to keep his teeth clenched and his lips pressed tightly together to keep from groaning. It hurt like hell, but at least they'd made it to medical. He could see a hospital bed just up ahead, and Wufei wheeled him closer. "Mariemaia," Wufei murmured, "would you please run back to the elevator and advise Dr. Po that sooner would be better? You'll recognize her, she'll be with either Triton or Noin."

She wiped at her eyes again, and gave a firm nod up and down, a soft affirmative shout, and then she was gone. He exhaled hard, enough to gather himself and mutter, "Long standing theory that I survived so I could suffer this."

"Long standing theory your nanites are more fucked up than I'd like. I wonder if I could overwrite their coding with mine. I still haven't figured out how you disrupted them that first time I came to try and fight you. There wasn't any point afterwards," Wufei muttered, and then Treize was practically lifted out of the wheelchair, the resounding grunt telling him that it required more than a little effort. He just wasn't a small man, even when he was in bad shape. It was a relief when Wufei dumped him onto the bed, like all of his muscles went slack at once because it was safe again. 

"You haven't worked it out?" He felt a little odd swell of delight at that. "Tchht. I'll show you. Used to have fine control over them, detailed programming, but they're sentient. Write themselves if you leave them alone. Haven't maintained them since we built Epyon." And oh Christ he was in pain suddenly, but he didn't have to put on a show of being hale and hearty for thirty fucking seconds and he was going to take it. "We released sentient nanites on L5. We sh-should all be in prison for that." Him, Une, Sally, Sally had been there, she'd understand, it was just before Noin's time.

"Treize?" Wufei sounded a little frantic, but he was fairly certain that the pain had made him black out entirely for a moment. "Treize, can you hear me? SALLY!" Ah, that yell was very loud.

And then no noises mattered anymore.

* * *

"Didn't think he was that bad. Maybe that the bleed was from a rough landing..."

"It's reminiscent of scurvy. Old injuries start to open up, it's... fascinating. His heart rate and breathing are stable again, so he should begin to feel better shortly. I don't know what supplementation he did during the war or how he managed them. He didn't have a personal physician and he had as many of his records as possible destroyed during his last days in power."

"That's because he's an idiot." Ah, that was a familiar voice. They all were. "It was mostly supplemental minerals and vitamins. I've found that magnesium and potassium help immensely."

"Are you sure Father is all right?"

"That's because it was no one's business." That was what he tried to say, though it was very likely that it was just a mumble as he struggled even to open his eyes. No, that was probably too much, he just needed to start with an inventory of where he was and where his body parts were.

God, he hoped they were all still where he expected them to be.

"There's no arguing with him," Wufei advised, and Treize attempted to wave a hand in explanation. He was fairly certain it didn't work. "Even when he's half-conscious."

He floated again after that. Maybe it was a moment or maybe it was much longer. It was always difficult to tell.

It was quieter by then, and when he opened his eyes the room was only dimly lit. That was... deeply familiar, and he spent a moment looking out an unfamiliar window to his left, focusing on breathing and taking in the familiar landscape of Lake Victoria. He could see Ndere Island; he was home, in a way, safe back on Earth.

"Are you awake this time?" Wufei's voice was soft, blurred a bit at the edges as if he'd been dozing. Maybe he had been. Treize had no idea how much time must have passed.

"Yes." Simple clean words made it easier for him to enunciate. He turned to look at Wufei, who had changed clothes and was looking cleaner. Less tightly strained around the edges, but there were still circles under his eyes, a suggestion of exhaustion lurking. "I heard Sally Po earlier."

One hand reached up and ruffled against the back of his head. His hair was free, spilling over his left shoulder. "Hm, yes. She came in and sewed up everything that was bleeding while you were out. Mostly it seemed to have sources from old wounds, but then we started giving you the proper infusions. I hope that will have turned out well. You certainly look a lot better."

He sat up a little, moved his right hand to touch the back of Wufei's neck, feel his hair. "I don't think I'm going to let that fool me this time. Tomorrow I'll have to teach you how to maintain nanites."

The feel of it was soft, fresh washed and clean, silky against his fingers. "Hmm, mine do self-maintenance mostly. Since they weren't originally programmed to... mmmm." Ah, his fingers were working quite well, thumb rubbing just lightly, and that seemed to be sufficient to make Wufei melt. "I'm supposed to be seeing to you," he muttered, but he didn't argue.

"I'm tired of falling apart." Quite literally, he'd been briefly concerned that his left arm was just going to give up entirely and fall off like some shit datastream comedy. "This makes me feel better. Where's Mariemaia?"

His thumb must have done something just right because it earned him a low steady sound that made him smile. "She's with Noin. They went out to get her clothes. She had enough for a few days, but she needed more. Girl things."

He stretched his fingers, shifted his shoulder, and got comfortable, continuing to rub gently. "I see. I'm glad Noin volunteered." There was a great deal he needed to think about and do, but for the moment he was exhausted, and Wufei was close and comfortable. They were on Earth. It had to be an improvement.

Surely it had to be an improvement.

"Test your other hand," Wufei suggested. "To see if it's working a bit better now that we've given you better things." He didn't move, just closed his eyes and sort of melted.

He quite childishly didn't want to but pushed down the complaint, stretching the fingers of his left hand and feeling it spasm and torque instead, the pain making his right-hand clench for a moment before he could relax. "Hnnn, no. No. I think I need to watch the videos you recovered. Can't understand it."

The way he stiffened was undeniable. "I gave all of it to Sally," he informed, biting at his lower lip. "If I see it, I... might not be able to stop myself from going back to L3."

"I'll ask her." He wasn't going to press Wufei, and he also wouldn't let him see them if that was what Wufei wanted. "Where are you staying tonight?"

"Here." Wufei waved a hand at the couch against the wall. "Did you think I would go anywhere else?"

"I didn't want to presume." He smoothed fingers against Wufei's the back of Wufei's neck, trying to rub out some of that stiffness. "Have you been debriefed yet?" He needed to call his family solicitor. He needed to legally establish that he was still alive. How did one go about undeading oneself?

"No. Tomorrow." He seemed to be melting under the touch, and that was something to be appreciated. "Tomorrow, but there isn't a lot to tell, in all honesty. Saw the video, went to Preventers, went to try and find out what was true. The hard part," he contemplated, "will be explaining killing Dekim Barton. Not because I was wrong to do it, but because someone will undoubtedly think that I shouldn't have done it."

He wished he didn't need to be hooked up to machines and that they could indulge that level of intimacy from a shared mattress. "I suspect the last war was raw and recent enough that it won't be a long discussion." But he might be wrong. "Has Dorothy arrived?"

"Tomorrow. She had something come up, or she would have been here with Sally." He turned and Wufei's hair was silk in his fingers, soft and loose. "She said something about paperwork. Presumably she has a plan, which wouldn't be a surprise. She's sneaky." And that seemed to impress as well as annoy him.

"She was terrible as a child. As terrible as you would imagine." He carded his fingers through it gently, trying to get close enough to rub Wufei's scalp gently. "I'm not surprised she rose to power so well."

It wasn't a surprise when he leaned into the touch, nuzzling until he had his face cupped in Treize's palm. One of his hands caught Treize's left wrist, fingers massaging it. "She's terrifying. Tell me the truth about how you're feeling."

His arm spasmed down to the elbow at the touch and he tried not to bend into the pain with a flinch, good hand hesitating. "Terrible." Treize laughed after he said it, quiet and basking after a moment in the rubbing; the pain started to ebb. "Doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters." And the rubbing felt good, felt fantastic. The brush of his right thumb over Wufei's cheek did, as well. "Go back to resting. We can worry about tomorrow when it arrives."

There was a great deal to worry about, and he'd never had a quiet mind. But Treize nodded, shifted slightly closer to Wufei, and let his eyes close.

There was a press of mouth against his forehead, and he sighed, and tried to sleep.

* * *

Mariemaia was sitting in what must have been a waiting room, a book in her lap, her head down while she read it. She was well settled and seemed to be happy enough.

Quietly, Wufei walked over to where she was and sat down, glancing over to see what she was reading. It appeared to be a book of fairy tales, the original Grimm. "Hi."

She glanced up at him, and then back down at her book. "Hello." Not exactly a warm reception, but it was better than hysterical crying like the night before.

"I wanted to check on you." Both of his elbows were placed on his knees as he leaned forward, looking ahead. "I don't expect you to forgive me."

Sometimes it was easier to discuss things like that without forcing eye contact, side by side. "Father is right. Sometimes we do things that hurt other people because they have to be done." She stuck her finger between the pages and closed the book gently. "I talked with Miss Noin."

"Was she able to help?" He could see Mariemaia lean forward to mimic his posture, her own elbows on her thighs.

"She told me about what happened to you, during the war." Oh, that had to have been an interesting conversation. "And about Father. And the war. It's a lot to think about."

That was an understatement. "I don't mind if you need to ask questions. Or if you want to know anything." Best to start as he meant to go forward, Wufei thought. "But I wanted to protect you and to protect your father."

"It's confusing. I don't know how any of you are still friends." She looked out ahead, still holding onto her book. "I don't know what... what comes now."

He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "We want... We all want the same thing, I think. It makes it easier, I suppose. That and we all lived through a very bad time. Sometimes when you come out on the other side of that, it means something that you lived through it together."

Sometimes he wanted to be more bitter about Treize using him to suicide, but he had lived through and with his bitterness, and there was no space for it now. That Noin had been OZ had stopped mattering right in the middle of the war when she defected to support Sanc. "Yes. I can see that." She sniffed and kept looking ahead.

"It's all right, you know." Wufei finally turned to look at her. "If you don't forgive me. I won't ask you to or expect you to. But I want you to know that it was important to protect both of you. So that one day perhaps you'll understand. And perhaps you won't. It's all right."

She still didn't look at him, expression sad, tight around the edges. Mariemaia looked so much like her father around the eyes, in her expressions. "My father loves you."

He had never said as much. Wufei never had, either, but they had been in one another's orbit. It had been magnetic and immediate and overwhelming every step of the way. Wufei didn't think that anything was inevitable; that there was _fate_ and that things were meant to be.

Treize felt like all of those things. "I love him, too."

"Mm." She rubbed her eye on her shoulder but didn't look over at him. That was all right. "Can I stay? I don't..."

He hadn't expected that they would do anything else. Of course, he hadn't talked to Treize about it, either. "I don't know what your father has on his mind," Wufei admitted. "I think he doesn't know what to do right now. Being unwell is very difficult. And he might not want to live with me, you know. But I would very much like it if you stayed."

It seemed to settle something, and she gave another nod to herself. "My grandfather hurt him. Had him hurt. It's all, I don't know. I'd like to stay." Treize would make some imperious quick-seeming decision, and while Wufei could guess, the man still baffled him most days.

He would probably baffle Mariemaia some days, too. If nothing else, he could be the rock upon which she built her foundation. His father had always been that for him; when his mother and grandparents died, when it became apparent that everyone was becoming ill. It was important, he thought, to have that person in one's life, particularly while still a child. "Then you will." He shifted a hand, laid it on her small one.

She looked up at him and there was no anger, just a murky sort of sadness that he could understand, and she nodded at him, looking suddenly determined. "Okay." As if he were somehow the deciding factor, rather than Treize.

"Okay," Wufei agreed, and hell. Just. Hell, they had a kid. Or maybe more like he had a kid, since he had no idea what Treize was going to think about all of this. "Okay."

They would figure it out. Having a kid was never something he had considered in his life; not since Meiran had died, and even then that had seemed a dubious proposition. He needed to talk to Treize later, when the man seemed well enough to have an alert conversation. She sat up a little straighter and opened her book again. "Have you read The Brave Little Tailor?"

"Seven at one stroke," he offered to her. "I also quite like _The Steadfast Tin Soldier_. The Anderson stories tend to end sadly, though, so maybe they're not the best for right now."

"Which one is _The Steadfast Tin Soldier_?" If nothing else, he could keep her interested with history and stories and exercise until they all worked out what they were going to do and where they were going to go.

He considered it for a moment. "It's been a long time," he began, "but it's about a tin soldier who doesn't have a leg. He was made at the end of the run, and they ran out of metal, so he went without one. And he falls in love with a paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. In the end, they fall into a fire together, and his metal forms into a little tin heart along with her burnt spangle."

"Oh. That's... sad." She looked down at her book. "Maybe history books would be better for a while."

"Or maybe something with happier endings," Wufei offered. "I've been studying ancient literature. There are some fun things in there. I packed them up when I came to L3, but we'll find them again once things settle."

"Okay." She seemed to be relaxing a little, and that was good. "Can we go outside? Sally told me I couldn't see Father for a while because she wanted to talk to him."

Fantastic. He could show her the barracks he'd blown up. "Sure. Do you think there might have been a playground? Surely there must have been some older soldiers here who had children." To train the others if nothing else. "Let's see if we can find it, hm?"

"Yes." She stood up, her book tucked under her arm, and that was funny, imperious, familiar. Mariemaia held her hand out to him and perhaps it was acceptance if not entirely forgiveness. "Let's go outside."

One breath later, he took her hand, and tugged so that they headed to the stairs. "But not in the deathtrap of that elevator. Are we agreed?"

"I don't like that elevator. Did you ever work here before?" It was easy to double back, down the hallway and toward the stairwell. The facility wasn't completely empty; there were little burbles of activity, but the medical area was mostly quiet.

Might as well confess up front. "I, ah. I actually was on the opposite side. I blew up some of the buildings and Miss Noin chased me down." He'd hurt like hell for a day or so, even with the nanites.

Mariemaia inhaled, making a funny noise. "But you all know each other, and you're friends. My father... how?"

That was a very good question. "It's complicated." That was, in the end, the only answer. "But I think we all wanted the same thing in the end. We wanted peace, and not to be forced into doing something according to someone else's will."

The stairwell was broad, a sort of grand military entryway with two flights of shallow stairs, and Mariemaia seemed fascinated by, looking up and down and around as they walked. "But what do you want to do?"

He thought about that as they made their way down. "I think that I want to be happy. And we'll figure out how to get there in time. What do you want to do?" 

"I... would like to go to school? I think. I don't want to go to military school." She was still looking around in fascination, particularly as they got closer to the big glass entryway. That was the point at which he realized what she was watching, and just.. no. No, no thank you, not at all. 

Death elevator it was, as soon as they escaped this spider infested hell.

"Then we'll find a good one, one you'll like. I suspect that some of the boarding schools are interesting. Your cousin Dorothy will probably have good advice on which ones you might like." Just a few more steps now. Ugh.

And then they were on the ground, and they both stepped away. Mariemaia just stood there, just outside, and breathed in and out slowly. "This is nice. It's pretty here."

Wufei was never going into the stairwell again. Reaching down, he clasped her hand. "It is beautiful, and in April it's cold and there are mosquitoes. Come on, if we don't find something, we'll ask. Or play a game." Find a part of the base that seemed less foreboding, less full of weaponry and the suggestion of organization and shipments.

Later on, he could come back and tell Treize that they now had a daughter. Together. That would be an interesting conversation, he was sure, but Mariemaia looked up at the bright sky for the moment and smiled, and for now that would be enough.

* * *

He was being debriefed in snips and clips of conversation, he knew, with Sally Po first. He could tell that they thought he had somehow arranged for his cockpit to be picked up, that it had possibly been part of a scheme, a plan. It was exhausting to consider, and he didn't even bother being outraged at those hints of suggestions. 

Treize instead focused on what he wanted: a copy of the data Wufei had handed to her, so he could work out what had happened at some later date. Information on what ESUN was planning to do with him.

Information on what came next.

"I expect that you may want to know what we find in the video files. It's within your rights to know," Sally pointed out, checking the IV before pressing buttons on it to do whatever she felt he needed.

So far she hadn't tried to slip him painkillers, so he wasn't overly concerned by her activities. "I would, yes. Perhaps a copy so I might attempt to make sense of it later."

Sally frowned and seated herself. "Noin and I have discussed it and I would prefer that any footage remain with us to be honest. I can arrange a viewing if you'd like. From what I've seen of it, you aren't going to find anything remotely pleasant."

"Commander Po, do you think any part of the last two and a half years of my life has been anything resembling pleasant? Hmn? I would like to attempt to make sense of it." He gave her a tight, polite smile as she got comfortable.

"Let me rephrase that, then. What you're going to find is disturbing and sometimes downright torturous. I do not recommend that you see this at all under any circumstances; however, I also know better than to expect you to follow doctor's orders so I will arrange a viewing when you're a bit more yourself." She paused, glanced up and down at him. "In another two days, I think."

"Acceptable." That also boded well for him eventually leaving with Wufei and Mariemaia, quite hopefully upright and walking. "Unfortunately, I do not believe I have any information that would be useful to your organization."

"General..."

"Treize," he advised.

"Treize. Then you must call me Sally." She paused and gnawed at her lower lip. "Part of the reason I don't want this leaving my hands is that I don't want anyone getting any sort of ideas about what they might or might not be able to do to or with you. I think you'll fully understand when you see things; I know you can't remember much of it, considering."

"It's something people in Romefeller knew about; and there are still people on X18999 who know it." Who had perpetrated it. He didn't have an eye for revenge, but he needed to be able to recognize faces and _know_ if he was going to resume life again.

It was just how the world worked.

"I understand. Presumably you don't plan to go back there again for any reason, I can't imagine that you would. I wouldn't," Sally offered, leaning back and crossing her legs. "Dorothy is due to arrive any time now. Maybe we can figure out where to go from here when she does."

"That's good to hear. I'm interested in being no longer legally dead." He had no more casual position he could take since he was already leaning upright in a hospital bed. "And what necessary political steps ESUN wishes to take in light of the... coup d'état."

Sally raised her hand and rubbed at her jaw in thought. "I suspect that the most likely action would simply be to say that you're unwell and being watched over by one of the Gundam pilots who had previously retired to civilian life. Neither of those things would, technically speaking, be untrue."

"I think we've all learned that house arrest doesn't work well for me." It wasn't a threat, but a statement of fact because if that was what they were contemplating... "Idle hands, and all of that."

That earned him a laugh. "I sincerely doubt any sort of arrest would be of use. We all know what happens when you're in that sort of situation, and no one wants a repeat of that. We'll see what the president says."

"The president says, Treize, mon cher cousin! And here I thought you had breathed your last."

Dorothy swept further into the room, and someone had clearly taken away her right to dress herself or there would be some sort of hideous gold involved. She wore instead a navy-blue pants suit with heels that could probably kill a man if she chose to use them in such a manner.

She looked good. She was growing into herself and her body posture seemed more mature, more commanding, if such a thing might actually be possible. "Dorothy, you look excellent. I was not surprised when I was informed that you had become madam president."

"Of course you weren't." She preened a bit, just a bit, and then laughed. "It's so good to see you alive and... well, obviously not healthy from what I've been told." She dragged a chair over and seated herself beside his bed, taking his hand. "Tell me everything."

Solicitous, and still that familiar slight distance to her posture. "There is very little to tell. I have some few indistinct memories from between what I had expected to be my death, and the last three or four weeks. Apparently my last stay in a hospital on X18999 after my mech was shot down during a mission was quite fruitful as I have a daughter who was being groomed by Dekim Barton to lead a dictatorship."

"You multiplied! And already a little dictator, good heavens. She's not even ten, that does put a kink in things, I suppose, if anyone knew about it. I expect she would only have been a figurehead, but one never knows. Hm." Her hands were primly folded in her lap, and her eyebrows had, if anything, grown wilder. 

It was remarkable, and he was taking effort not to stare too hard. They weren't even blood relatives, though it did make him wonder what their various families had been up to a few generations back. It had never interested him as much as it had interested Vingt. "Pilot 05 arrived to investigate -- video content the Bartons had baited him with. I'm not sure. Since he arrived, I had begun physical therapy and was working on walking again. When pilot 03 arrived, the timeline to leave X18999 moved up... considerably. And here we are."

"Yes, well. Beheading the senior member of the Barton family would move up one's timeline considerably. Sally told me that you were doing much better now that she's sewn you up and started giving you appropriate care." She obviously wasn't asking to know anything more, and that was probably for the best.

Sally nodded. "He's doing quite well, all things considered."

"Yes. Much better than yesterday." And that was all he wanted to offer, all he wanted to let his mind touch on while she was there. "I have no doubt that you've arrived with decisions already made about what should be done with me. I'm interested in hearing them."

He heard the sound of her slacks as she shifted, crossing her legs. "You know them as well as I do, darling. We can send you to Elba, we can arrange a shooting squad for, oh, crimes against humanity, or you can choose to support the current ruling body quietly from, say, the estate in Wiltshire with your -- what does one call one's partner of choice in this case? Companion, mistress, although I doubt pilot 05 would be happy with being called that -- and be limited to new inventions which are preferably not mobile suits but something interesting and useful and, for god's sake, more aesthetically pleasing than Epyon was."

"The estate in Wiltshire." He repeated that after her and was aware he made a half wincing noise. "Please tell me you're not thinking of the damn museum house."

"Oh, good heavens, no. I use that for society functions on occasion, I shouldn't think that would be to your liking at all." Her fingers picked a non-existent morsel of lint from her trousers. "I was thinking of the one near Bradford on Avon. It would undoubtedly suit your -- seriously, I'm not sure, paramour? Lover? -- and besides that, it's within forty-five minutes or so of a suitable boarding school."

Leaning back in her chair, Sally tilted her head at Treize. "I did say we would know which way to go once she arrived, you have to admit. Sometimes I think she's playing chess twenty moves ahead of everyone else."

Funny, she was right where he expected her to be, having made up her mind and giving him his choice -- take it or die. Again. "Let's go with 'partner' for the time being. I am honored to support the current ruling body when called upon and interested in otherwise being left alone. Thank you for the opportunity."

Ah, that smile. It was at once familiar and probably terrified grown men. Not necessarily himself, but he felt sure most men were afraid of being stripped of their soul when it was turned upon them. "Excellent. It would be a waste to shoot you, honestly."

"You'll know where to find me when I'm needed." And he could start with a suitable period out of the public eye while he tried to work out what was going on with his left side. He could be unwell without having to put on a show, and that would be a relief. "I'll wait a few days before calling the family solicitor. Is Jenkins still alive?"

"And kicking. Usually complaining that he's had to hire two new gentlemen just to cover the paperwork I send him. I've already contacted him to have him work on the paperwork. As you've still been listed as missing in action and haven't yet been declared legally dead, it won't be as difficult as all that, I think." Dorothy sighed. "I truly am glad to see you, you know."

The best part of it was that he knew she had likely had him declared MIA rather than KIA for pure tax purposes, spreading out the huge inheritance she had no doubt collected from the deceased General Catalonia, and possibly more from other Romefeller relatives to whom she was related. The inheritance of the Khushrenada holdings would have been a substantial burden, and he had no idea how liquid she was or wasn't after the war.

Lucky him that his cousin was a tax dodger. "I'll try to keep the trouble I cause you to a minimum. I have quite a lot of work to do on myself first, before I'll have time to be restless and a public figure of any sort."

"Of course. I've seen the records, and Sally has kept me informed about your general health. I am sorry it took the better part of a day to get myself free, of course, but there was nothing to be done about it. I'll have to return in fairly short order, but it was important to me that I come and see you again." Reaching out, she lightly touched the back of his hand, which was quite demonstrative for their family.

"I appreciate it, and understand how taxing your duties are." Quite intimately understood. It was something he had only done out of necessity, not solely from interest. He glanced briefly at Sally, whose expression was mildly puzzled in the way he assumed was judging of their interaction.

That was what happened when a person wasn't raised to deal with politics; they thought differently. He wondered what Wufei would think of it.

"He did ask to look at the video that they brought back with them. I told him I couldn't provide copies, but I could certainly arrange a viewing, despite the fact that I don't recommend it," Sally offered.

He felt his jaw clench -- Sally's words had a tone rather like being ratted out to a teacher -- and looked over to Dorothy's oddly thoughtful expression. Now wasn't the time for her to tuck away the persona and actually apply compassion to a decision. "I need to know what happened if I'm going to work out how to repair myself appropriately."

The understated roll of Dorothy's eyes said everything. "Stop being a grumpy bear, Treize. Of course you would say that. Well. If he wants to see it, go ahead. Presumably it's only himself he's damaging. If anyone else takes issue with it, we'll have that fight when it comes."

"Thank you." Perhaps either of them would understand better if they were missing two and a half years of their lives, and had only recently started piecing things together. Not that he wished it on either of them.

Not that he wished it on anyone, really. At least not anyone living.

"There we are, then. Decisions made. I did see your companion with a little redheaded girl when we arrived. She looked a bit like your mother, you know." Ah, and now they were off of serious matters and on to the social. That was quite bearable.

He relaxed slightly against the mattress. "The thought crossed my mind. She and Wufei are getting along rather well." Possibly better than he was getting along with her, but he was going to try. If he felt like throwing himself an occasional pity party, there was nothing that stood up to being abandoned by every adult in one's life through death or desertion. It gutted a child, hardened them too early. He, Zechs and Une had all experienced that, and there had been no one to pick them up except each other. After that it was mostly conversation until somehow he found himself falling asleep despite quite enjoying it. Healing was like that; it took a lot out of a person, and no one expected him not to fall asleep, after all.

When he woke, the sun was low in the sky. Dorothy had gone, as had Sally. Wufei was curled up on the short sofa in the corner, and Mariemaia was tucked against his side. He was reading aloud to her, voice quiet, and Treize could just see the peak of blue eyes behind auburn lashes.

He stayed still, listening to the rise and fall of Wufei's voice even if it didn't completely resolve into distinct words. In many ways, he was the horrible person Sally no doubt thought he was, but lying there, he didn't wish to interrupt. He could happily have a lifetime of that feeling. He could have something, something like a family. Something that was his to protect, smaller than the world, but only his. The feeling of that was bittersweet; it was something he had never thought he would have. Perhaps it was something he hadn't thought he had the _right_ to have, he wasn't sure. Either way, they were there, and he wasn't altogether surprised when he saw Mariemaia put her hand to her mouth almost as if she wanted to suck them. She was still so young to have lived with such tragedy. To have such a weight put on her shoulders, to be tossed so hard by life... No, it wasn't fair for her.

He listened and watched them both, until Wufei's voice fell quiet, the story completed. "What time is it?"

"Almost eighteen thirty." Wufei's voice was warm, low. "Mariemaia, are you asleep?"

"Mmmm," she answered, but her eyes opened slowly so that she could see him. "Almost."

"Are you awake enough to talk for a minute, Mariemaia?" That was a question he should have honestly asked himself, but he needed to put out some reassurances.

Whatever the case, being asked that got her eyes to open further, expression just a bit worried. "Yes, Father."

"I've been given a stay of execution. They're going to have my MIA status changed, and there's a manor house in the United Kingdom we can move to. Cousin Dorothy has even found you a suitable school nearby. How does that sound to you?" There wasn't any choice, but he wanted her to feel like she had some part of it.

He didn't miss the way her eyes darted to Wufei -- for reassurance, for guidance? He didn't know. It was quite the change from just after he'd confessed to killing her grandfather. "Is it close to you?" Her voice was small, but it seemed that perhaps boarding school had already been brought up as a possibility.

"Ten minutes drive. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with us driving you there once it starts up in the fall." Us, which was him volunteering Wufei without having talked to him. While he was reading stories to her, it was possible that the man was going to bolt at the next viable chance.

Still, it felt like a slim possibility, so he let himself say it. "And possibly I might need to learn to cook something other than sangria, at least until help can be hired on."

His heart squeezed painfully when her smile broke into existence, bright and excited, her cheeks going pink. "Yes, please, Father!"

Wufei's voice was as wry as his expression when he spoke. "Fortunately for both of you, I can cook. Presuming I am invited."

"You're quite explicitly invited, Wufei. I can't imagine you not joining us. It isn't far from Oxford if you wanted to resume your studies." He didn't know if that was a plus or a negative, but he knew Wufei had turned his life upside down with no notice to find Treize.

Broad shoulders shrugged. "I might. Or I might take a sabbatical and pick up something else. We'll see how things settle down first, I think."

It probably shouldn't have been surprising to find that Mariemaia had slipped close to the bed, and then she was in it, thin arms hugging him with surprising strength. Her lashes were a bit damp, as well. "I'm so glad," she told him, voice reedy. "You have to get well soon. Promise."

"I promise." He hugged her back, one armed and as tight as he dared. "I promise. I'll be back on my feet soon, and you won't need to worry about me anymore."

"Father." She sniffed and looked at him, a tiny smile on her mouth. "If I didn't worry, I wouldn't know what to do with myself."

A throat cleared in the doorway. "Well, we can't have that, now can we?" Sally leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb. "Time for a bath and supper and bed, I think. Do either of you need something before we abandon you?"

"No, Sally, thank you." He could do with a meal; he kept sleeping through them for all that he was feeling better on the whole. He gave Mariemaia another squeeze, and then let her slide off the bed.

"Goodnight, Father. Goodnight, Wufei." Mariemaia kissed his cheek and then scampered toward Sally, and something about it made him feel overwhelmed.

"Goodnight, Mari," Wufei offered, unfolding his frame from the couch. "Presumably they'll bring supper shortly. Would you like a bath before then?"

"I could use help getting up to the bathroom at least. I assume you're implying I smell like I need a bath," he noted wryly, shifting to try to sit up better, to move the blankets.

Wufei shrugged and moved to open the bathroom door, then to the side of the bed from which he could best help Treize. "I am not implying. I am stating." The twitch at the corner of his mouth spoke more than a full-fledged laugh might have.

"And given that, we'll be exiting now," Sally laughed. "I'll tell them to bring supper in about half an hour, shall I?"

"Yes, thank you. Good night, Sally." It had surely already been a very long day for her, well past time to go off duty. He watched them go and Sally closed the door. Not to keep him in, but to provide privacy. There was no click of a lock, and he needed to know that.

There was a fresh wave of everything hurting once he stood, even with Wufei's help, but it traveled like a wave and then ebbed back enough that he thought he could try his luck. "You don't mind the United Kingdom, do you?"

"It's where I was at school, so no. Not particularly. I don't think I'll go back just yet. Maybe when things settle down." Dark eyes slid to the side. "When we decide what we want to do. What would make us happy, you and me and us. Do you think?"

"It is strange to consider the future again," he agreed, as Wufei let himself be leaned on every step of the way. "I know I haven't been... clear. Explicit. I..."

Oh, fuck.

"Neither of us has exactly been explicit." The answer was careful, just as the assistance to get into the bathroom was. "Here, piss while you're up and I'll set the water to heat up."

There was a little side wall jutting out perfectly to lean against to support himself while he did just that, letting his mind go blank while he emptied his bladder. He had spoken to live audiences of thousands, televised to millions, and he'd never lost track of his words, his eloquence. But one on one, it always seemed to go that way. _No, don't leave, I want you to stay_ somehow became _I don't want to hinder you and I understand,_ solicitousness that bordered on coldness, that didn't show up anywhere else except when it was completely inconvenient. 

He even managed to struggle limp to the sink to wash his hands, leaning a thigh hard against the counter to keep upright while he ran words through his head. Fuck and damn. "Please come with me. I can't imagine not having you in my life."

Looking up, he saw Wufei's face in the mirror, eyes damp, mouth curling upwards. "I love you," he said finally. "You couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to."

"That's a relief as I realize I'm also asking you to badly raise my daughter with me, and we haven't talked about any of this." He just kept making assumptions, decisions, but that soft smile and the warmth in Wufei's eyes told him he hadn't fucked it up regally just yet.

He had plenty of time to do that, he was sure.

"Take off that ridiculous hospital gown and get in the shower," Wufei told him, and he was already stripping off his own clothing, so presumably they didn't have to talk about it yet. Unless they talked about it naked, which was entirely possible and extraordinarily unwise. That was a quick way to ruin a good naked anything. He shrugged out of it, eyeing himself in the mirror for a moment and finding nothing worse than he'd been looking at the last few days. Treize edged, unsure of his footing, across the vacant space between the sink and where Wufei stood just outside of the running shower. He wasn't at all surprised when he felt a guiding hand lead him into it, pushing him under water that was the perfect temperature, just this side of too hot, and then there was a flannel being handed to him and a small tab of soap just big enough for him to fumble and drop.

"We'll talk about it," Wufei told him. "And I'll raise your daughter with you, hopefully better than either of us expect."

"My standards are very low. Shouldn't be hard to exceed." He leaned into Wufei, clutching onto the washcloth and soap, and just enjoyed the feeling of skin against his own.

It wasn't surprising when he found Wufei pushing his head enough to get it damp and then beginning to work shampoo into it. "I'd say that I would like to think your interest in me speaks of higher standards; unfortunately, I know far too much about you to necessarily believe that is so."

"Mmm, and what terrible books about me have you been reading?" He was cheating and using his left hand to anchor himself in place while he tried to start using the soap with his right.

Fingers massaged his scalp. "Ah, I ignored books about you, actually. I had rather more interesting ways of getting information originally, and I had quite a lot about you. In point of fact. Some of it probably ranges in the realm of rumor and innuendo, but if even part of it is true, well."

"Now I'm curious." He leaned into the rubbing, eyes closing partially against the steam and the bouncing spray.

"Rumor has it you slept with most of your executive staff. In fact, innuendo would have it that there were orgies, which have never been of interest to me personally," Wufei advised him, dry as the Sahara. "I do doubt the orgies, but suspect threesomes and foursomes might have been on the menu."

He snorted, and leaned his head back under the water, as Wufei slid his hand back down to the base of Treize's neck. "Rumor was somewhat correct, though salacious. Lady Une, Milliardo and myself..." How to say it? "Had a casual arrangement when we were the Specials."

"I might have found that intimidating if I were younger." If he were younger, Treize would have felt guilty as hell about sleeping with him, most likely. Well. Maybe. "Fortunately for you, that isn't the case." His fingers were still gentle, easy as they rinsed out the shampoo.

"Hmmm." He closed his eyes for a moment focusing on Wufei's closeness, holding himself steady. "It's hard to explain. We graduated from the academy together. And I was always..." It wasn't a conversation for making excuses, and he stopped himself. "Loose with my affections."

"Some people are." He felt Wufei pull the flannel from his right hand and begin washing his back. "Just as some people aren't." His voice was hesitant when next he spoke. "I would prefer that your affections... ah, hm." He seemed to consider what he wanted to say. "If we do this thing, I would prefer that your affections be meant only for me, I suppose. Which isn't non-negotiable at this particular moment in time, just..."

Treize leaned in, and pressed his mouth against Wufei's temple, nuzzling wet skin. "I don't regret what I did, particularly, but I regret the way it impacted the people I loved. I won't hurt you that way." He was sure he'd find some other completely accidental way to hurt Wufei, but they'd discover that particular pitfall, whatever it ended up being, with time.

That seemed to have been worrying him a bit because Wufei sighed and his body became less tense. "All right. So that, that's one thing we've agreed on. Let's finish washing and get you back in pajamas."

He made an agreeing noise and finally started to help where he could. It was awkward, and the shower stall was too big, with plenty of opportunity to stand there soapy and lightly misted from splash. If he'd been feeling hale, he would have taken it as an opportunity, but perhaps the timing was off. Wufei seemed to have a list of things he wanted to discuss, and Treize wasn't going to impede that. 

He did enjoy returning the favor, washing Wufei's long hair one handed and with help. It was lovely when it was unbound; he should wear it loose more often or at least less tightly bound.

He was honestly tired by the time they got out and his left hand ached immeasurably. Wufei dried them both, wrapped a towel around his waist, and strolled out to dig through the things they had placed in the locker-like closet before coming back with a handful of toiletries, a t-shirt, and pajama bottoms. They looked brand new and probably were.

Treize was just grateful for clothes, for struggling to step into pajama bottoms, and the discomfort of trying to get his left side to play along enough to get the t-shirt on. It was funny what made a person feel human; clean skin, fresh clothes, toothpaste, mouthwash. Being awake. "Thank you." Wufei was looking worn, too, and he wanted to take Wufei to bed and make his worries fade away.

"They'll be bringing supper soon. Sally thinks maybe you'll be okay to leave within the week." His mouth opened, jaw cracking on a yawn. "It's been a while since I chased someone through a playground. I think Mariemaia has exhausted me."

"She looks up to you. That's good." He spat toothpaste into the sink, and would gladly go back to brush his teeth again after eating because the vague taste of something wrong, blood, he didn't know, had been on and off since their 'escape'. "Did you know I was listed as MIA?"

Wufei seemed to think about it. "I suppose it makes sense. No body was recovered, so technically you might have been alive. And it turns out you were, despite what all sense would say considering the size of that explosion." He was gnawing at his lower lip, looking uncertain. "I killed her grandfather. That can't be easy. I expect that will be thrown in my face at some point. Children are children, after all."

Treize wiped at his mouth, and moved carefully, barefoot, toward Wufei, to nudge them out of the bathroom. "Yes, she will. We'll deal with that when it happens. I'm simply glad she's talking to either of us."

"I think she might worship you a little." Wufei's hand was on his elbow, and they made it to the bed easily enough, at which point Wufei helped him seat himself and rearranged the sheets and blankets comfortably before pulling over the tray table, as they would find it much more convenient for eating.

He was desperately looking forward to being mobile again, without support. "Yes, we'll work on that. I wish I'd known about her sooner." At any point at all before when he did find out. "I only vaguely remember her mother. There were a great deal of painkillers."

That snort was accompanied by a wrinkle of Wufei's dark brows. "That sounds remarkably... odd. And not good." Although as Treize recalled, it wasn't exactly unpleasant. What he remembered of it, anyway, and besides, he would have said yes if he hadn't been under the influence.

All she would have needed to do was come around when he was mostly conscious, flirted a little, and... well. He cleared his throat slightly. "These things happen."

"Not," Wufei noted, "in my experience." That quirk of his lips seemed amused by the answer, however, which was more than acceptable. "But then, I have been the recipient of all of your experience, and I can say in all honesty that it's nothing to dismiss."

"I'll take that as acceptable, then." He lifted his eyebrows at Wufei, smirking slightly. "There's probably a few more things we ought to discuss."

"An endless list." Agreement, but no list could possibly be endless, could it? "Do you have suggestions?"

"I don't want the things I have to do to become the things you have to do. That's never a good thing in the long term." It was easier to say these things while sitting upright, which was a nice thing. "While we take some time to figure out what now. I don't want to keep making decisions for you."

Ah, a snort. "As if I would allow you to make decisions for me. I want," Wufei said explicitly, "to go with you and to help you until you can be yourself again without assistance. That might take a month or three or six. After that, I'll probably go back to studying. Perhaps distance learning, it should be easy enough to do that." He paused. "To be honest, I was raised to fight a war and to manage the wealth remaining to my clan. Now that I am the only one left, that takes up a not insignificant amount of time. I expect that you know that already."

It made him smile because Wufei's frightful stubbornness was lovely. He pushed and Wufei shoved back, easy as that. "I do. Are there other clans left on earth that you have ties to?" Wufei would travel, he was sure, and Treize would stay in one place except when required, and that was something he was oddly all right with when he considered it. He had traveled quite enough for his lifetime.

One shoulder raised in a shrug. "Laoshi is isolating himself in the area from which we came. No one will bother him; the government keeps an eye on him in order to be sure no one is inciting an uprising, of course. And there are some of the Joketsuzoku left, but very few, and none of them are anyone I would know. Most of them were slaughtered as opposed to being exiled to a rotting space colony. A handful of them we had managed to hide were with my people, mostly the males. So no, not really. I suspect you have a few more than I, but not by much."

"My stepfather was Dorothy's uncle, so as far as blood relatives, that would be one." Mariemaia. As far as clout, pull, property and influence, that was a different story; he would have more 'allies' than anyone would know what to do with.

"Ah, so. As many as me, then." He was clearly less angry about that than he should have been in Treize's opinion. "You definitely understand the amount of time devoted to resource management, then."

"And just how little you can delegate before you find out something has ended up at the racetrack, yes." So that meant office space for Wufei at the manor, which was good. He vaguely recalled the floor plan of the place, and he could mentally parcel out appropriate spaces for everything.

It was a little odd realizing how very different the backgrounds of the Gundam pilots must have been; two from colonies with the resources to devote to the matter, and three from less fortunate places. Certainly Wufei's colony wouldn't have been as well off as the Winners, either, but once everyone was gone save Wufei and one other (and undoubtedly Wufei saw to whatever Laoshi needed, Treize was sure), it would certainly be a significantly larger amount to manage. He wondered precisely what they might have done to prepare Wufei for the inevitable end of things. "Plus, there's no one to whom anything can be delegated in my case. For some reason, I distrust strangers. I have a solicitor, of course, but some things are better done by oneself."

"I was remiss the last few years and shunted quite a bit to the lawyers. I'll have to see what state things are in now." He didn't think Dorothy had let things fall to rot because that hadn't been in her best interests as the presumptive inheritor.

Leaning forward, Wufei wrapped an arm around one knee. "I've..."

A rap came on the door, and it was pushed open shortly thereafter by a staff member who brought in two trays. "Good evening, sir. You look as if you're feeling a little better. The kitchen closed down a bit early this evening, so supper is a bit of a mixed bag, I'm afraid."

Treize mustered up an easy smile. "Thank you. Solid food is still terribly exciting, so we're grateful."

"Just ring when you're ready for the dishes to be fetched," the young man advised, and left the room.

Wufei stood and removed the covers on the trays, blinking. "Well, that is a mixed bag, I suppose."

"What did your colony feed you?" Treize asked, catching himself grinning as he looked at badly done lima beans, something that was possibly a cube steak, and potentially burnt pomme frites. He speared one with a fork and popped it into his mouth.

"It depended. If I were on colony, then the sort of foods one would expect. It was more difficult in space, and much less appetizing, truth be told." He picked up one of the potatoes and popped it in his mouth. "Mm. Bland." And it appeared he didn't approve of that. Treize hoped that meant he was therefore in line for tasty interesting dishes in future since Wufei had affirmed that he could cook.

"Calories," Treize shrugged, considering how to tackle the cube steak. "And a senior NCO stuck on duty when he'd rather be home doing anything else because we're here. So it's fine."

"It's edible," Wufei agreed. "But I do hope you don't have anything against spices. I'm not sure I know how to cook without them." He made a face. "And it isn't as bad as British food, overall. I'm unclear on why everything is boiled."

"I'm fairly sure that British food is quite acceptable. I don't remember it all being boiled -- quite a lot of roasting. Perhaps more spice would have helped, but..." He lifted his eyebrows at Wufei, and promptly fumbled the knife so it shot off the plate and onto the floor.

That earned him a snort, and then Wufei reached over and began cutting into the cube steak for both of them, since he was now the only one with a clean knife. "Well, I confess, I think Meredith quite liked bland. And usually I cooked, but we'd eat out when it was his turn and normally he chose. So perhaps it isn't British food overall, it's Meredith."

"I promise to introduce you to some acceptably interesting local fare once I'm up and about." It was hard not to laugh, and he leaned back a little, chuckling to himself. "Once I'm sure I'm not going to cause an accidental scene."

Wufei used his fingers to pop a bite of meat into his mouth once he was done, jaw moving up and down for an amount of time before he swallowed. "I think they're planning to do a press release of some variety. Control how the information goes out to the world."

"That will be interesting. We'll have to hew to whatever story they decide to use." He fumbled the fork as well and gave up and picked up a lima bean to eat while laughing. "Fuck."

"It'll get better. Everything else already is and it's only been a day. I could tell you felt better when you woke this morning even after all of yesterday." And the day before, truth be told, because time had gone shaky somewhere in there.

That was something that just happened, too. "I know. It's... funny and frustrating." But he could pick up single items with his fingers and eat so that was an improvement on when Wufei had first arrived. "I've always been a terrible patient. I imagine you are, too."

There was no point arguing it, he could tell, because Wufei gave in immediately. "Horrifying, some would say." He ate another bite and then tilted his head, thoughtful. "So. Do you think only one person in your bed will be sufficient? For you to be happy?"

“This really is bothering you." He chewed through a frite, watching Wufei with a steady expression. "Now I _am_ curious what specifically you heard." He almost said that he hadn't slept with anyone but Une or Zechs in a decade, but that was wrong. He had the year wrong, and he'd picked two lovely Peruvian attachés up at a banquet a few months before Operation Meteor. "Yes, I've been very sexually adventurous. I also delight in having companions who enjoy my company. It isn't a numerical factor."

"I told you, there were rumors of orgies. I can tell you that I will never be inclined toward orgies. It isn't that I object to them on principle," Wufei told him, twisting so that a foot rested on the bed as he re-settled himself. "But we should both be happy, don't you think?"

"Yes. But I don't require a rotating cast of bed partners to be happy. One is quite good. For the last decade, that partner was usually my job." Which was something he needed to work through. There were no forces for him to organize, no equipment for him to design, no war to plan. There were no raids, no battles, no incursions. There was no grueling training schedule. There was no need to wake up at 0500 for a jog before falling into staff work, before planning meetings began.

It was over.

The breath that shivered from Wufei's throat seemed relieved and he suddenly found himself with the entire length of him pressed along his side, an arm across his chest, face buried in his shoulder. "Okay." His voice was muffled, and his grip was tight. "Okay."

He would have to keep an eye on that, not to trigger it accidentally by being stupid or careless. Treize nudged the tray aside to get more room, brought both arms up to hold him, right hand petting the back of Wufei's head. "It's not a ridiculous fear given my history, but it is an unnecessary one. I give you my word."

When he sat up, his face was dry, his cheeks flushed, his hair a half-dry tangle around his face, and more than anything at that moment, he wanted to twist and get him under him, make him laugh and make him come. "Good." Pink tongue darted out and moistened his upper lip. "Good. Okay." Almost as if those were the only words he could form, but then, "So we're going to an estate somewhere in the UK with your daughter, and we'll..." The laughter was a bit breathless. "Probably have raging fights and excellent make up sex. And that would make me happy."

"Mirialdo once accused me of having the capability for deep personal reflection as a teaspoon, and I can't say he was wrong. I do respond well to being yelled at, so I expect you're right." He kept a tight grip on Wufei with his right arm until he tried to shift and managed to sit up.

"Finish eating, you ridiculous man. You've got to be tired, I am definitely tired, and we should do it before we pass out."

He nudged the tray table back into place, mouth twitching at the edges. "I'm going to be good, and not imply that that is clearly a double entendre." So he grabbed a handful of lima beans, to work through them because all of his utensils had fallen somewhere and he couldn't be bothered to look for them. It was too much effort, and when it gained him another muffled sound, not quite a full-fledged laugh, it was worth every bit of stickiness on his fingers.

* * *

When Sally had shown up with a datapad and several chips, Wufei had decided that ignorance, not discretion, was the better part of valor and had promptly taken himself off. There were some things he never needed to know about; if he did, he'd end up on L3 committing mass murder, and he had enough travesties on his conscience. He didn't need another. He didn't want to know, even if Treize had a stubborn urge to find out just how exactly he'd been tortured. The man was starting to recover enough that Wufei could see them leaving the base very soon, and it seemed the wiser decision to celebrate and move on.

It left him at a loose end, walking very far away from the hospital wing and more toward the operational wing of the building. Noin had volunteered to show Mariemaia the hangers, and she'd seemed happy enough to go, waving at him as they went in the opposite direction. 

Mostly he thought that it was better to take himself toward the operational wing than any of the barracks. Things had been rebuilt but he still felt uncomfortable seeing them. After all, he'd killed a lot of people here, unrepentantly. He didn't regret it, exactly; after all, the base at Victoria hadn't been his only target. He'd probably done worse. There was no point in dredging it all up, though. There was no point in picking at old wounds, not when he had a partner who was damn well determined to take a hack saw to any old wound that would hold still. 

He didn't expect to turn a corner and see Duo perched on a table, drinking a cup of coffee.

"Wufei! Hey, man, it's been a while, huh?" There was no hiding that bright grin, because it was camouflage in and of itself. Anyone who didn't recognize it was already neck deep in potential disaster and probably staring death in the eye.

He turned a gimlet eye on him. "All right. Out with it."

"Out with it? Out with what, man?" He grinned, spreading his hands as if to show that he wasn't armed. "Heero and I almost had a mission but we were recalled. Someone was planning to kidnap the foreign minister."

Well, that was far better than just showing up, so Wufei looked around until he found the coffee pot and made his own cup. "Well, that's significantly better than you wanting to drag me behind you into chaos." Pausing, he frowned. "Is it just me or is she as terribly prone to find herself in the middle of chaos as the two of you?"

"She's daring and feisty," Duo grinned. "No fear. She's a lot saner than her brother was, too. I like her, but yeah. She likes danger."

Using a foot, Wufei pulled out one of the plastic chairs and dropped himself into it, leaning back. "It wouldn't take a lot to be saner than him. Sounds like you more than like her."

Duo gave a chuckle that was entirely incriminating. "Mebbe, mebbe I do. She's a great lady. Heero thinks so, too. So, it's good to see you!"

There was no way to keep himself from snorting. "You only get that enthusiastic when you want something."

"Well, you're out of hiding. I mean when you were at school, we all wanted to leave you alone. You were doing that for yourself, yeah? But since you're... you stopped... Have you thought about joining the Preventers?"

There was no way to keep his amusement hidden. "So you're the recruiting agency." Might as well just have been up front about it, he thought.

"We have health care. Spaceships. Mobile suits." He lifted his eyebrows at Wufei. "A purpose. Someone's gotta protect the peace. It ain't gonna protect itself."

Well, he was right about that in any case. "I don't know. I think we did plenty to damage it already. Or maybe plenty to bring it about. Maybe both of those things."

"We did. We killed. Now maybe we can save lives instead." He could see how it would work as a hook, a way to get someone interested if they were feeling at loose ends.

He wasn't at loose ends. "Maybe one day. Once Treize's well enough to leave, I'll be going back to the United Kingdom." Let him interpret that however he liked. It was true enough, and Wufei probably would end up going back to his studies.

"With 'his excellency'?" Duo tilted his head slightly, sipping his coffee. "Heero had a theory that he'd turned you to his side during the war."

Oh. Oh, that... made him a little angry, actually. Or maybe just irritated. "Then perhaps he should have mentioned it to me. He definitely didn't turn me, not any more than anyone else who tried. And I switched sides quite a bit less frequently than anyone else, might I point out."

Duo shrugged his shoulders, looking guiltless. "It was a theory when you went missing. And then you showed up again like... like you did. I'm not accusing." He took another sip of his coffee. "So you're not really at loose ends, then."

"Not really," Wufei agreed. "And the theory wasn't wrong, exactly. It was... complicated." More than, truth be told. "But he never made any attempt to subvert me. And I never changed to his side."

Duo leaned back on one hand, looking thoughtful. "That's maybe more complicated than I'd know what to do with. You happy?"

The answer was immediate, and he was sure of it. "I think.. yes. Yes, everything is strange and confusing and there's no solid plan, but I am surprisingly happy."

"Okay." Duo swung one leg loosely. "I definitely have no solid plans. I get the hives every time Relena talks about her five and ten year plans. Like, life doesn't work like that."

And what could he do except laugh at that? The thing was that they _could_ laugh now. It wasn't all life or death and they actually had lives which was significantly more than any of them had expected. They had made it through and it seemed like Duo was happy with everything. Wufei certainly was. "I prefer to have a plan, but everything changed so quickly. The last month has been long."

"I bet. Trowa's been working this for a couple of months already, but no one knew Khushrenada was there. I..." He scratched up under his ballcap thoughtfully. "I'm glad you're happy. You let us know if you're ever not happy, yeah?"

It was weird, he thought. Coming out of a war with something like friends. "Yes. I suppose you should call me the next time you panic about someone having plans?"

"Is that an invite to come swim in your duck pond sometime? Hey, Wufei, are you guys gonna have a duck pond? Or swans?" He leaned in to elbow Wufei, grinning. "Or is it going to be fancy dinners and I don't know. Roses."

He had to bite his lip. "I suspect," he replied, sounding a little strangled, "there will be a proper pool so that you don't have to swim in the swan pond. And he can't cook for shit."

"Neither can Relena or Heero. That's what hired help is for, I've been told." Duo threw him fake wide 'help me' eyes. "And Heero would eat cardboard."

"I'm sure your suffering is truly horrible to see." If he sounded a little sarcastic, who could blame him. "Being cooked for and coddled." Well, probably not, but who could say?

"It's intense," Duo agreed. "So you're gonna be... given long winded lectures and build shit?" That made him want to laugh, too.

"Probably. But at least you know I'm good at building shit. And who knows, maybe I could be giving out a few of the lectures."

Duo made a thoughtful noise, looking at Wufei with suddenly laughing eyes. "I, uh, meant that as a metaphor, so now I can't unthink that."

"If it was a metaphor for sex, it was actually terrible."

Yes. He'd ended up with friends somehow, and it was not so strange or terrible a thing as he had thought it might be.

"It was a metaphor for sex and yeah no it's terrible and I can't take it back from myself." Duo broke down laughing, catching his coffee cup close to his body. "I mean it's kinda hot, and also why the hell are you so tall?"

"Why the hell are you so short? And Trowa dwarfs both of us." Wufei at least didn't need help reaching shelves. He was fairly certain Duo hadn't even gained the extra inch being on Earth usually gave compared to the slightly heavier gravity of the colonies, which probably wasn't all that strange considering the conditions on L2. Malnutrition had probably contributed to that significantly. "Never mind Quatre. I haven't seen him in a while."

"He'd probably like to talk to you. He's been busy up on L4 cleaning up all the shit OZ did up there. Apparently he's ruthless." He grinned again, and Wufei narrowed his eyes.

"The fact that anyone thinks he's the least terrifying of all of us," Wufei began.

"I know, right?"

"It's the most ridiculous...."

* * *

He had everything; the datastreams, a datapad, he was sitting upright, and someone had even brought him a cup of coffee. 

And Sally Po was sitting in the chair beside the bed.

"Don't even think about trying to order me out because I'm not leaving. And I honestly have no intention of watching it, so just assume that I'll be watching you in case you need someone." She tried to sound stern and she might have been quite good at it if she weren't talking to someone who'd been in the military in some form forever, and military school even before that.

"Ideally I'd be doing this at night in a dark room with a glass of wine. It's how I prefer my bad news." He made a blithe expression, and took a sip of his coffee, before starting three of the first videos at two speed, open and together so he could work out what might be of interest. The time stamps would help organize what he was seeing.

He was fairly certain that she muttered under her breath that she was the one who needed the wine, but he was already pulled into the video and, oh. Oh, he definitely understood the bizarre dysphoria when it came to his own limbs.

There had not been much of him when he'd been brought in, and they had been careful to film the damage, unbandaged. His shoulders were still all original manufacture, he supposed, if he were still thinking about it like that; the electrical damage had mostly been on his left side, the problematic spots, and he watched as they lingered over the damage to his legs -- gone -- and his hips and pelvis. The muscles twinged in sympathy, and he could briefly feel a phantom ache as he watched strange gloved hands explore his body, still wearing part of his burnt uniform, probing the damage, peeling off fabric and swabbing cauterized wounds. He started to fast forward, but it was an odd relief to know he hadn't been losing his mind. His body discomforted him when he least expected it, seemed unreal, because it was.

Because it had rebuilt itself.

Slowly. Horrifyingly slowly.

But it had. Starting with the left side of his face and his left eye, which certainly explained the partial blindness. Possibly it explained the pallor and the way that Sally Po was carefully looking anywhere but at the screen of the datapad.

He started to sort through the files and play anything that might be labeled interestingly with anything other than timestamps. He turned up the speed on the files that were already playing, and cued other ones in the timestamp sequence behind them to start when it finished. It was still slow, and then he started into the files that began with x01, x02, and on.

In x01, they took his left eye out again with a surgical scalpel. He watched it with quiet dispassion, opened x02 and saw an unfamiliar hand wielding a pocket knife, the sleeve of a military uniform. Digging into the wrist of his slowly growing back left hand, cutting down to the bone. Just parsing and filleting him, peeling back muscles and then leaving it alone, open and damaged. 

Treize started to dig through the clips from the handheld cameras, let the room monitor play in the background then. Saw Barton and his colonel come and go and participate, saw the nurses and doctors pump him full of painkillers while he spasmed and wept. It was for the best that there was no sound.

"We can stop anytime, you know." Ah, but she still wasn't looking at the screen. She did have her fingers on his left wrist though, and oh. Oh, checking his pulse. "And I do suggest you stop."

"I haven't finished." He shook her hand off in one annoyed gesture, and kept digging through the files. It just went on, endlessly. His left hand had been taken apart in videos he watched seven, eight times, trying to retrain the nanites, he guessed, and then they started the same at his legs, his hips, and by the time he had reached x67, the exhilaration of cutting and cutting and causing him to regrow and rebuild gave way to what he considered the usual shit. And he watched a few more videos in calm detachment as Barton's colonel fucked him, damaged his body for fun, cut a ball off for sport, whatever was interesting to him that day, and he had seen enough.

The folder went up to x204 which was time stamped to two days before Wufei had arrived, and that was all he needed to know as he closed them in quick succession.

"I did say," Sally murmured, leaning down and taking his wrist again. "Can I get you something?"

"No." He closed out the datapad, then closed his eyes and let her take his pulse, for all that would do for her. He couldn't think with her there, couldn't allow it to connect in his head. "Bury them in a deep security hole."

"All right." He was fairly certain that had been the plan all along, and that she'd have been significantly more pleased if it had found the hole without him ever seeing it. "Done." Done, because what else did someone say when they'd seen something like that?

It didn't matter if she knew what was in them or not. "They were working to change the structural template. I know what I have to do with the nanites now. They need an undamaged structural template as reference." It was a phrase at a careful remove from what had happened, which encapsulated it quite well. He liked it.

"Mmmm." Her hand was back on his wrist again, and he didn't want it, but it was also... grounding, he supposed. He didn't want it, and he couldn't pull away from it even as she used her left hand to push it all into a heap and push the tray table away from the bed.

That was fine. He kept his eyes closed, and just didn't. Think. Couldn't, and now everything made sense, his little flashes of memories. Mariemaia had snuck down to see him, the curiosity he was, for the whole two years. On and off at night, she was part of the pattern of life in that hellscape, when it was quiet and the fun had ended and he was mostly wiped up and asleep. She had to know, know and interpret it somehow, he didn't know how a nine year old would process any of it, and he needed to talk to a developmental psychologist because if he was somehow bizarre and needed help because he'd run his attack first mission in a mobile suit at twelve, a seven year old passively witnessing the aftermath of a medical horror scene once or twice a week was something worse. Both made the horror mundane.

"Can I do something for you?"

He'd have to tell Wufei something, he didn't know what. And he'd have to make some kind of plan, and figure out what to do and where to go and...

"This is Commander Po, would you please bring in the things I requested earlier? Yes. Yes, that. Thank you." She leaned in a little closer. "I asked them to have something ready in case you became too anxious. It's going to have something of a sedative effect when it starts working, all right?"

"No." His eyes shot open, and he pulled his arm back sharply. "No. No painkillers, no sedatives, I've had enough of people injecting me with things and setting my veins on fire because the nanites don't like it. Do you know what it feels like to burn from the inside?"

"All right. All right. Then we should try something oral if you won't allow it, and that's fine. I understand, I do. We have video but not records, Wufei said that it was painkillers, he didn't mention the sedatives." She seemed to be trying to reassure him, calm him.

Which was insane, because he was calm. He was perfectly composed, albeit with clenched teeth. "All of it makes it worse. I'm fine. I'll be fine. I need space to think."

The door opened and he nearly jumped off of the bed entirely, too keyed up to do more than wrench his arm away from her and look to the person in the door as if expecting it to be someone other than the nurse who was mostly just there during the day. "You said I should bring--"

"Just the tablets, thank you, the rest can go," Sally said sharply.

"Please leave." He didn't want to have to have an argument with her, and he was damn well not going to take some unknown tablet. "I would like to be left alone."

"The last thing you need is to be left alone right now," she advised. "If you won't take the meds, shall I send someone for Wufei?

"I'm not going to do anything stupid or rash. I do need to be left alone." He closed his eyes again, and brought one hand shakily up to rub over his eyes. Eyes, hah. He'd gone through a few different versions of the current left one, hadn't he?

When she looked at him, it was disconcerting, gaze warm and soft and understanding. He hated it. "Hm, someone else said something very much like that to me once. No wonder you like him."

He snorted, but felt his mouth tug a little at the edge. "He's egregiously stubborn. I cherish that. Now please leave."

"Horrifyingly stubborn, in fact. Honestly, he was so ridiculous sometimes, he floated away in a little flat bottom boat down a stream making sad faces." Her hand was still on his wrist, keeping the beat of his pulse. "Let me stay and I'll send someone to find him, all right?"

"Fine." He wished she'd stop touching him, his heart rate was just fine. And even if it wasn't, it didn't matter. The machines would do whatever the hell they wanted and fix that, too, and he'd never before felt such an upsetting roiling dissonance, when before he had been in a state of detente with it. It was useful, acceptable, lifesaving. It was still useful, acceptable, lifesaving. "Did you check the space around L5 for any other... creative re-assemblage that might have occurred?"

The way she drew in breath seemed loud to him. Was it? "Yes. Yes, we did, and we go past regularly, just... just in case, but no. No, there hasn't been anything like it. We haven't mentioned it, especially since he chose not to throw in with the rest of us."

He relaxed a little, hand still over his eyes. "That's some relief." But it might be possible. If they could survive space, could they survive space? What would stop their programming, what, would anything it reassembled even have a soul? "I need you to stop touching me. Please, commander."

Her hand withdrew, pulling away from him, and he couldn't help gasping because yes. Yes, that was so much better. Thank god. "All right. Are you sure you won't try the anxiety medication? It isn't really a sedative, but it might help."

"No." He exhaled slowly, inhaled slowly through his nose, and just focused on what he could feel. He could feel the fabric of the pajamas against his thighs, he could feel his face under his right hand, he could feel the pillows pressed against his shoulders and back, and the backs of his arms. He couldn't feel his left hand correctly with his eyes closed, and if he were honest his left foot and part of his hip weren't noticeable. Right knee. He would be fine. He would be fine.

A tentative knock sounded. "Commander Po..."

"Yes, would you please find Pilot 05 for me and ask for him to return to the room?"

He'd be fine. He would be just fine.


End file.
